


Awake and Unafraid

by A_Kid_Named_Hiro



Series: MadaTobi Week [10]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 05:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17440721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Kid_Named_Hiro/pseuds/A_Kid_Named_Hiro
Summary: Prompts:Experimentation/Crazy scientist(fromMadaTobi Week 2018).Dreamer(selected byAshfrom200 Writing Challenge).





	Awake and Unafraid

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: _Experimentation/Crazy scientist_ (from **[MadaTobi Week 2018](https://madatobiweek.tumblr.com/post/174594542851/madatobi-week-2018-prompts)** ).
> 
>  _Dreamer_ (selected by **[Ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashida)** from **[200 Writing Challenge](https://www.deviantart.com/insane-1/art/200-Writing-Challenge-68163506)** ).

His hand is warm.

There is blood in it still, blood that clings and churns angry, stubborn, _afraid._ Beneath his skin, it simmers, even as life leaves him.

Tobirama can feel it. In the warmth of Madara's hand that too quickly, too slowly grows cold. In the panicked thrum of his pulse within his wrist.

He does not _want_ to die.

Of this, Tobirama is aware. How strange that he has always understood Madara's mind and heart, disfigured as they may appear, unknowable as they were meant to become.

How strange it is to be _here,_ half-kneeling upon the ground, his hand clasped in Madara's ungloved one, watching his breath slow.

Tobirama can feel his own heart falling away like ash, the way his skin flakes and crumbles.

His _heart._

His _skin._

His _life_ that isn't his own, yet _is._

What an abomination he'd created. This beautiful, macabre tragedy. Pride and wonderment and horror war within him. Hours ago, he'd arrived upon the battlefield and beheld Madara — beautiful and ugly in his defiance of logic and time. Terrible in all his destruction. His warped, noble ambition.

And Tobirama's first emotion had not been anger. Not disgust. Not urgency.

It had been _relief._ It had been _pride._

He had _created_ this monster. Generations ago, he had felt Madara die as vividly as if he'd been there, in his brother's place. Been the one to run that sword through his back, to still his wildly beating heart.

Generations ago, he had felt the moment Madara breathed again.

And Tobirama had _let_ him.

He had never been able to bring himself to kill Madara.

Now he is here, watching Madara die, wondering if this is karma, wondering how his heart could still break long after it had ceased beating.

"This isn't how it's supposed to go," Madara says, in labored breaths, in a voice that is equal parts angry and resigned and afraid.

Tobirama knows, that Madara has only ever allowed himself to be this vulnerable before _him._

He can feel his brother's eyes upon them. Hashirama, who had never understood nor approved of their relationship but who — for once in this godforsaken life — allowed them _this._

"You were never supposed to leave," Tobirama replies. There is neither blame nor spite in his words, just truth.

"You were never supposed to let me," Madara says.

Tobirama hears the truth in that too.

A dream world with no sacrifices. No pain. That was what Madara had tried to build. A dream that, Tobirama had so arrogantly thought, Madara had no right to interfere with.

He recalls his words now and thinks himself a hypocrite. For what is he if not an interferer of dreams? Of life and death and all that lay between them, simply because he could never accept the grief that _fate_ and _nature_ and _order_ had brought upon him?

They are, both of them, dreamers and madmen. They are both monsters.

He reaches to brush the hair from Madara's face. Drags his fingers along his forehead, his temple, his cheek. He hears Madara's breath stutter. His skin is alarmingly, expectedly cold.

"Will you stay?" Madara asks, quiet and loud amid this heavy, oppressive silence.

Eyes upon them that refuse to look away. Eyes of the dead and the living, of children and men. Tobirama disregards them. His hand remains clasped in Madara's own. His other hand traces the line of Madara's face, thumb brushing the familiar curve of his lower lip. "Yes," he says. Means, _For now._ Means, _For eternity._

Madara closes his eyes. His lips still. His skin grows colder and colder.

Tobirama can feel the blood that ceases to flow. The pulse that slows to nothing. Madara's chest that rises and falls and does not rise again. A broken vessel. An empty heart.

And still he stays. He remains, half-kneeling in the dirt, hand tangled in Madara's own, gaze locked upon his face that looks real and unreal all at once. A dream and reality, intertwined.

He remains even as he hears Hashirama approach, feels the quiver of his hand upon his shoulder, the burden of words withheld. Even as Ootsutsuki Hagoromo undoes the jutsu, even as he feels the others fade, even as he feels himself leave the vessel he inhabited.

He watches Madara and remembers him as he was, as _they_ were. He thinks of their dreams, different and the same and unmade. Ash upon the floor.

Tobirama recalls the warmth of Madara's hand in his. And he closes his eyes.


End file.
